About
Coming Soon
Quote 1192
1.6K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself. The Reason for God (8)
The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.
The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. The Reason for God (181)
Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out and believing what truth is despite what you feel.
To know that God knows everything about me and yet loves me is indeed my ultimate consolation.
God loves all in some ways, and God loves some in all ways.
There is tremendous relief in knowing his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can disillusion him about me.
It is the love of Christ, i. e. his love to us which passes knowledge. It is infinite; not only because it inheres in an infinite subject, but because the condescension and sufferings to which it led, and the blessings which it secures for its objects, are beyond our comprehension. This love of Christ, though it surpasses the power of our understanding to comprehend, is still a subject of experimental knowledge. We may know how excellent, how wonderful, how free, how disinterested, how long-suffering, how manifold and constant, it is, and that it is infinite. And this is the highest and most sanctifying of all knowledge. Those who thus know the love of Christ towards them, purify themselves even as he is pure.
The covenant is "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God" (Exodus 6:7). The question is this: In light of the constant failures of the people to live up to their covenant promises to serve God, is the covenant conditional or unconditional? Will God say that it is conditional? ("Because you broke the covenant, I will cut you off, curse you, and abandon you forever.") Or will he say it is unconditional? ("Though you have rejected me, I will never wholly abandon you, but I will remain with you.") Which is it?....then Jesus comes, and as we see him crying "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" we realize the answer. Is the covenant between God and his people conditional or unconditional? Yes. Yes. Jesus came and fulfilled the conditions so God could love us unconditionally.Preaching, 72
In our culture, divine judgement is one of Christianity's most offensive doctrines. The Reason for God (69)
When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn't be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods. He would relate to us the way a playwright relates to the characters in his play. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright, but only to the degree the author chooses to put information about himself in the play. The Reason for God (122)
divine love, by contrast, is not reactive but creative: God does not find that which is lovely and then move out in love toward it; something is made lovely by the fact that God first sets his love upon it. He does not look at sinful human beings and see among the mass of people some who are intrinsically more righteous or holy than others and thus find himself attracted to them. Rather, the lesson of the cross is that God chooses that which is unlovely and repulsive, unrighteous and with no redeeming quality, and lavishes his saving love in Christ upon it.
The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.
moralistic application doesn't work in the long term. I'm afraid a sermon that just tells people they should be generous because they have to is not dealing with the fears, false hopes, and lusts for approval and control that make people unwilling to give more. So they might give more once or twice but not actually become more generous... Unless you get to Jesus, you are just beating on their willsPreaching, 240
Without the help of the Holy Spirit, I believe all of us tend naturally toward being mainly warm and gentle or mainly forceful and authoritative in the pulpit. We must recognize our imbalance and seek the Lord for growth into the fullness of his holy character.Preaching, 200
the Achilles' heel of [the harm principle] is the assumption that we all know what "harm" is or that it can be defined without recourse to deep beliefs about right and wrong. One person says that it harms no one for a man to consume pornography privately in his own home. Others counter, however, that pornography will shape how he talks and acts with others, especially with women.Preaching, 141
Western secularists insist that their view of equal rights is simply self-evident to any rational person, but non-Western cultures do not agree... Because truly secular people can't admit the source of their main moral values in their Christian history, it makes them imperialistic.Preaching, 151
Another important grace-event pattern is the "order" of the Exodus and the lawgiving. God did not first give the law and then deliver the people. He first delivered the people and then he gave them the law. Thus we are not saved by the law but saved for the law.Preaching, 83
Mark is intentionally recapping the Jonah episode in Mark 4. He uses nearly identical words and phrases. Both Jesus and Jonah are in a boat. Both are in storms described in similar terms. Both boats are filled with others who are terrified of death. Both groups wake the sleeping prophets angrily, rebuking them. Both storms are miraculously calmed and the companions saved. And both stories conclude with the men in the boats more terrified after the storm is stilled than they were before.Preaching, 78
Hughes Old shows us that the original preaching of the church in its first five centuries used the lectio continua method - consecutive, verse-by-verse exposition through whole books of the Bible, taking years to bring the congregation through great swaths of biblical material.Preaching, 39
[Hughes Oliphant Old] names five basic types of sermons that he discerns over the centuries, which he calls expository, evangelistic, catechetical, festal, and prophetic.Preaching, 29
In the course of expounding a biblical text the Christian preacher should compare and contrast with the foundational beliefs of the culture, which are usually invisible to people inside it, in order to help people understand themselves more fully. If done rightly it can lead people to say to themselves, Oh, so that's why I tend to think and feel that way. This can be one of the most liberating and catalytic steps in a person's journey to faith in Christ.Preaching, 19-20
the essence of sin- that we don't "give thanks"? Is that such a big deal? Yes, it is. Think about plagiarism for a moment. Why is plagiarism taken so seriously? It is claiming that you came up with an idea yourself when you did not. It is not acknowledging dependence, that you got the idea from someone else. Plagiarism is a refusal to give thanks and give credit and is, therefore, a form of theft... Cosmic ingratitude is living in the illusion that you are spiritually self-sufficient.Prayer, 196
The term describes the direct sight of the glory of God. This is what the redeemed will have in heaven fully, by sight, and what believers have now on earth partially, by faith and not yet with our literal eyes. While Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas made this the centerpiece of his thought, very few Protestant theologians have touched on it at all.Prayer, 176
Christian meditation, however, is quite rational, even argumentative. "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?" David says in Psalm 42, literally contending with his own heart. Mantra meditation seeks to suppress the analytical side of the mind. Christian meditation, however, stimulates our analysis and reflection- and centers it on the glory and grace of God.Prayer, 150
Top Authors
1. Charles Spurgeon (113)
2. J.C. Ryle (108)
3. Thomas Watson (95)
4. John Piper (81)
5. John Calvin (79)
6. J.I. Packer (74)
7. George Swinnock (68)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (47)
12. Gerald Bray (46)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
15. Tim Keller (42)
16. Abraham Kuyper (40)
17. John Owen (39)
18. John Flavel (38)
19. Thomas Brooks (36)
20. Martin Luther (33)
2. J.C. Ryle (108)
3. Thomas Watson (95)
4. John Piper (81)
5. John Calvin (79)
6. J.I. Packer (74)
7. George Swinnock (68)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (47)
12. Gerald Bray (46)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
15. Tim Keller (42)
16. Abraham Kuyper (40)
17. John Owen (39)
18. John Flavel (38)
19. Thomas Brooks (36)
20. Martin Luther (33)
Top Topics
1. Sin (152)2. Prayer (114)
3. Preaching (101)
4. Scripture (98)
5. Faith (92)
6. Gospel (71)
7. Suffering (57)
8. Church (51)
9. Justification (47)
10. Law (47)
11. Truth (45)
12. Salvation (38)
13. Theology (35)
14. Love (33)
15. Grace (32)
16. Sanctification (31)
17. Apologetics (30)
18. Fear (30)
19. Unbelief (28)
20. Creation (27)
21. Pride (27)
22. Worship (27)
23. Holiness (26)
24. Eternity (24)
25. Evolution (24)
26. Heaven (24)